U.S. Pat. No. 4,379,537 to Lomeli et al. discloses a business form with a removable label and a method for producing the same. According to the Lomeli et al. patent, a paper substrate in the form of either individual sheets or a continuous strip is fed into a paper processing apparatus. The paper process apparatus produces the business form having a removable label disposed thereon by a method comprising the steps of imprinting information on the paper substrate, applying transfer tape to the paper substrate, die cutting the substrate to form a label, and subsequently collating, cutting, or storing the resulting product. The disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 4,379,537 is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
There are various devices that are currently available for producing business forms such as integrated labels in accordance with, for example, the method and apparatus disclosed in the Lomeli et al. patent. A number of such devices are commercially available from a company called Tamarack. The Tamarack devices produce a number of different types of business forms including label/form combinations, integrated labels, integral cards, fold and seal mailers, stencil/form combinations, continuous envelopes, affixed windows, promotional forms, and the like. A source of pin-feed paper having pin hole punching disposed at a generally uniform interval along both sides of the paper allow it to be fed through the device. Such Tamarack devices generally include a pin-feed paper infeed unit, a vacuum applicator unit, an unwind unit containing transfer tape, a hot melt applicator head, a feed control unit, and integral die cut unit, a hot melt unit, and a roll/fold/sheet delivery unit. Typically, the pin-feed paper that is fed into the Tamarack device is manufactured on a separate piece of equipment that, most usually, is owned and operated by a separate company from the company that runs the Tamarack device.
What is desired is an improved method and apparatus for manufacturing multiple die cut business forms.